A light-hearted ballade

My last post was a week ago and I'm starting to get itchy! I've been really busy with one thing and another, plus I've been hunting out some new poetry challenges since the Guardian Poster Poems have sadly ceased (which helped me write a few of my earlier poems on this blog).

The challenge I found was to write a ballade on the theme of "Escape". I also set myself the additional challenge of writing something light-hearted. There is a reference to a famous 60s film (which I found incredibly strange when I caught a few minutes of it the other day).

I suspect that it may seem a bit disrespectful, but it really is meant in a lighthearted way...




St. Pollyanna tries her escape:

His mighty works to understand,
To convent foolishly I sped.
Far from finding the promised land,
In me a vile depression spread,
To dull the pain on whisky fed.
Much Devil’s water did I scoff,
And slept face-down in flowerbed -
Stop the world, I want to get off!

From the nunnery I’ve been banned
For secret prayers to Spanish red -
I’ll never sit at God’s right hand!
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
“No! just give me Christ’s blood”, I said,
“It makes you blind it tastes so rough,
Slow poison which Our Lord has blessed.”
Stop the world, I want to get off!

To oblivion I had planned
A journey ending live or dead,
But no escape could I command!
Slowly waking, my swirling bed
Instills in me a sense of dread,
Wine for breakfast is not enough
To help me face the day ahead -
Stop the world, I want to get off!

Prince of spirits, grant me instead
A stronger drop (perhaps Smirnoff?)
To send me back out of my head.
Stop the world, I want to get off!

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